We are founding a small community on 7.25 acres of wooded, hilly land in Hamden, Connecticut, USA, with a ranch house, a stream, a streamside meadow, and soaring poplars and maples. Although the land is heavily populated with invasive species, there’s also trout lilies, trillium, bloodroot, white wood asters, snakeroot, and several types of goldenrod. Day to day, we will be spending a lot of time together as a community: cooking and eating together; sharing chores; working together on home and land improvement projects; and hanging out. We want to host occasional events like workshops, cookouts, and backyard shows.
We want to manage the forest as a forest-understory farm that provides food for humans, especially mushrooms, shade-tolerant native edible plants like mayapple, honewort, ramps and fiddleheads, and water plants like wapato and cattail. We want the land to provide way more ecosystem services than it does now and support all kinds of wildlife, from turkeys to caterpillars. There is also mown yard near the house that can be converted over time into small garden and orchard areas. We have chickens, goats, and livestock guardian dogs.
The community is about 15 car-minutes or 30 bike-minutes from central New Haven. The monthly cost-share amount is $800 for one person or $1200 for two people sharing one room, plus utilities. We want to protect the land so that it can never be sold, but instead is owned in trust by the community, providing everyone who lives there with land security.
As a community, we have a lot of thoughts about power, privilege and how to live as justly as possible in a deeply unjust world. We are committed to restorative conflict resolution, and to anti-racism.
If this sounds like your dream living situation, please message us! We’ll be happy to answer any questions and send an application your way
Our focus is on community living with compassion towards each other and the ecosystem, using forest farming as one path into a better relationship with the world.
Please email or call to chat and possibly set up a time to visit. We ask everyone these questions first: Are you interested in sharing chores, garden work, a meal rotation and social time with housemates, can you tolerate judicious glyphosate use on land you live on, and are you vaccinated against Covid?
The whole membership decides collectively.
Generally seek agreement, but have backup methods when consensus isn’t reached.
Power and responsibility are shared relatively equally among members.
Members maintain separate personal finances with minimal sharing.
Join fee: $800
Regular fees: $900
Labor: Yes (5 hrs/week)
Members with pre-existing debt: allowed
Note: buy-in is equal to one month’s cost share and refundable upon departure.
Common House, Garden(s), Vehicle Share, Library, Workshop, Outbuilding(s), Tractor & Farm Equipment, Fire pit, Internet
Residential areas outside city centers but within metropolitan regions.
Shared living spaces with private bedrooms/bathrooms and communal
kitchens, dining, and social areas.
Communal living with shared resources, property, and often income or work responsibilities
A residential project: people live here as their primary home.
An institution, business, network, or project that isn’t a residence (e.g. a learning center, farm, or network with no one living there full-time).
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